Warning: The following video contains graphic descriptions of child/infant rape.

***Project Safe Childhood was introduced to the public in 2006 to combat the increase of sexual predators using the Internet to entice and sexually exploit our children. ***

I wanted to include the above video in this discussion on the rise in child sexual abuse arrests. It was originally posted under the discussion header “Not Fearmongering – It’s the REAL WORLD”, which I find to be very fitting. But even more so now that we see that arrests are up 10%.

I had previously posted an article explaining measures being taken in Europe to tackle the surge in online abuse, and how not all networking sites are on board with the idea. I’d love to see something like the “online emergency button” implemented here in the US and Canada.

The number of suspected UK child sex offenders arrested over the past year has risen by 10% to 334, the body set up to tackle abuse has said.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection unit said it had helped protect 139 children and disrupted 82 paedophile networks over the 12 months.

The arrests, in the UK and abroad, were for offences ranging from possession of indecent images to rape. But Ceop warned that the tactics being used by paedophiles were evolving.

Chief executive Jim Gamble said it was “easy to be alarmist” and suggest “technology is opening doors for offenders to abuse children quicker than we can close them”.

Notice that last bolded section… It’s what those of us who have been fighting online predators have been saying for some time now.

The article goes on to say:

But he said: “This is not about technology – this is about people. There is no distinction between the online and offline worlds.”

“This is about the behaviour of offenders manipulating any environment to abuse children.

“Child protection is everybody’s business and we should afford our children the same protection online that we would give them in the park or playground.”

We’ve also been saying this for some time, with one exception… online, the predator can more easily convince a child that they’re something they are not. No child is going to believe a 46 year old man who is trying to convince them that they’re a 12 year old boy if they can actually *see* them. But online, everyone is anonymous. Anyone can be a 13 year old boy, or a 12 year old girl… or both.

But Gamble is absolutely right in that children need just as much protection online as in the real world. He’s right that predators will do anything they can, manipulate anyone or any environment they need to in order to prey upon children. He’s also right in that protecting children is everyone’s responsibility.

A Ceop spokesman said while this was mainly done through instant messaging, there was a “fast-growing trend” of grooming through integrated social networking sites.

Offenders were also using more peer-to-peer networks and newsgroups rather than commercial pay-per-view sites, the report said.

It warned that mobile internet access was “placing new and additional responsibilities on parents”.

This is something we’ve been seeing a lot of. We’ve seen it on Ning, on YouTube, and many other networks. In the last two weeks alone, I’ve reported 8 Ning sites to NCMEC for containing child pornography… some of it the most graphic I’ve ever seen. (I should note here that Ning, for the most part, has been very responsive when I’ve reported these sites to them, as well.)

One last note, that may make anyone reading this feel a little more hopeful:

Mr Gamble said its work with colleagues overseas was “shrinking the world for the offender”.

Warning: Contains information and descriptions that are unsuitable for minors. Parents, please use discretion. While screenshots have been edited to hide the faces of children involved and to black out nudity, there is still some content on some of them that are inappropriate for minors.

MM All,

As many of you know from a previous post about Online Safety, I have a couple of IP trackers set up on PACA. One of the reasons for this is to keep track of how people find PACA and surf in.

This is how I became aware of a PACA member who was also a member of several predator sites and child pornography sites that had been set up on the Ning platform, and is what prompted me to start the Campaign Ning” group. The member went by the name of “Dagmar”. (WARNING: Do not click that link when children can view the screen as there may be inappropriate content on her Ning page. UPDATE: Dagmar’s page has since been removed from the Ning Networks platform.)

She was banned from PACA at that time for breaking PACA rules, as well as Ning ToS. While I had suspicions about her at that time, I didn’t have any proof that she was a predator… at least none that would convince anyone who doesn’t know what to look for. That’s why I didn’t post this discussion a lot sooner. But she was a member of a large number of the sites that were clearly adult in content, openly viewable to anyone (even minors), and many of them contained graphic pornography on the main page, member pages, in the photo galleries and the video galleries. Ning has, as of the start of this year, decided to no longer host adult sites, so each of those sites was reported to them.

Then I came across “Mums for teens Advice”. A description from the reports I sent to Ning and NCMEC about this site:

“It’s very obviously set up to attract teen girls to give them “motherly advice”, but none of the members seem to be teens, many of the members have nude or partially nude photos up, and there are adult male members as well. It looks to be a predator site. Even some of the profile pictures break Ning’s “Adult Content” rules.”

The site was fairly quickly shut down because of the content, and still has the “maintenance” page up.

I reported that one at the beginning of May. Now, if someone were just looking at the name of the site, it seems like a good thing, and they may join and forget that they’ve joined, and maybe never check the content. So I gave her the benefit of the doubt. After the whole PaganSpace thing, I was worried that many of our members wouldn’t appreciate a heads-up based just on suspicion and this one site. But I have been keeping an eye on her network list.

The next day, I came across a site called “Devil’s Whore”, of which she was a member, and on which she had just befriended a girl who didn’t look a day over 14. She was friends with many of the minors on this site, some of whom had nude shots of themselves as their profile picture. Some of the kids on this site clearly broke Ning’s ToS simply by being members, as they don’t allow any members under the age of 13. Nearly every child member had been befriended by multiple adult members, who either left sexually suggestive comments or photos on their pages. Many of those adults had pornographic profile pictures, so each comment they left added that to the child’s page, as well. Just to give you an idea:

As I said in the warning at the top of the page, I’ve blacked out all nudity and hidden faces of children. The network photo was particularly graphic fetish. One of the profile pictures on the listing was a full-frontal shot of a little girl, about 5 years old, nude on a beach. The profile for this listing said that they were “an incest family from Germany”. The one next to it was a penis shot, and there were many of those left on the pages of children on that network. I didn’t see one comment anywhere saying how inappropriate all this was.

And yet, one could still argue she didn’t look at the content, that maybe she’s just into fettishism and slutdom. Hey, to each their own, so long as they’re not hurting anyone else, right? Only children were most definitely harmed in the making of some of the content of that site.

That site contained many of the same minors and adults as the “Devil’s Whore” site, and again she had children on her “friends” list on that network.

Both sites were reported to NCMEC. Both now show as “Page Not Found” and “This network has been taken offline by it’s owner”. (Ning has assured me that this does not mean that they weren’t able to save all the evidence needed by LE to track the predators on the site.)

The next day I found 2 more sites through her list:

kissed a girl, which I reported to NCMEC, but unfortunately slipped through the cracks for a while… but I kept an eye on it. The name of the site, together with the URL, was a dead giveaway, and though I couldn’t view anything but the main page, there were many of the same child profile pictures as on the other two sites.

Girl and Boys, which also had many of the same members and inappropriate profile pictures. (Note that the URL, when you click on it, is “privatefotos.ning.com”.)

I resubmitted my report to NCMEC and to Ning for the “kissed a girl” site a week later, when I saw that many of the members of the networks that had already been closed down had started posting child pornography there. 11 people had joined the network within a day. It could have been due to the fact that I reported 2 more sites (which where quickly shut down) just the day before:

bludbox.ning.com contained some of the worst, most graphic images I’ve seen to date, including a photo of an adult man having intercourse with a little boy. I was pretty shaken after finding this particular site.

http://babygirls69.ning.com/ seemed to be mainly a GL (Girl Love) site, and had photos of preteen girls in “sexy poses” and exposing private body parts or nude.

Then yesterday I found three more, again through Dagmar’s list. Two of these were even worse than the “bludbox” site, horrible, nightmare inducing content:

lilsissiboys… as you can see from the screenshot below, they even add a description of what the site is about that is completely unmistakable… “for lovers of little girly sissy boys”.

And in case that one is too small to read, here’s a screenshot of the header:

And their member badge is even worse:

It says, “I’m a member of lilsissyboys: post pics and vids of boys dressed like little sluts, Young gay and sissy boys” (note the capitalization of the “Y” in “Young”, and also that Dagmar’s picture shows up first in the list of members on the badge).

The second site I found yesterday was “lilgirlluv”, and the site description was “For all you little girl lovers”

There was CP (Child Porn) right there on the Ning listing. And the member badge?

It says, “I’m a member of lilgirlluv: post pics and vids of little girl sluts and angels”.

Both of those sites had images of young children being made to do things that many adults wouldn’t do, sexually degrading things. Both sites contained very graphic pornography involving children.

Now, how anyone could join either of those two sites and not know what they are is unimaginable. To see them and not report them is unforgivable. Ning had both sites shut down within 10 minutes of me emailing them the reports. The fact that Dagmar was a member of both of these sites is what convinced me to post about it, as a warning to our members. Many of our members have her on their friends list, and I’m sure that they don’t realize what kind of a person she is. Many of you are also members of other Ning sites she is on, and you may want to consider sending off a warning to the owners of those sites, particularly if there are minors on them.

Just to give you an idea of what we’re up against, the “lilsissyboys” site had 297 members when I reported it and the “lilgirlluv” site had 249. Now anyone who has started a Ning site will have a fair idea of the length of time it takes to get membership up that high. This can only mean one of two things… either the sites had been there for some time, and no one has reported them, or that the predators on Ning are incredibly well organized. The fact that they seemed to bounce from one site as it was closing to another site to post their abuse leads me to believe that it’s the latter.

The third site I found yesterday was “your space to talk”, with the description “I JUST MADE THIS SITE TO ENTERTAIN PEOPLE TALK TO KIDS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD!!WELL I HOPE YOU JOIN!!!!” Well, a lot of people did, and most of them were predators looking to hook up with kids. There were many people posting sexually suggestive and sexually graphic photos of children. Though I would have had to join the network to see just how bad it was, there was more than enough incriminating evidence to be found in the photo slideshow on the main page. It was also shut down within minutes of being reported to Ning and NCMEC.

And today, I found yet another one. When I started to type this post, and went to Dagmar’s Ning page to copy the link, I noticed that she had befriended a young pre-teen girl who’s profile photo was a full-frontal nude of herself. I followed that link to find that this girl had tons of teen and pre-teen “friends” with equally inappropriate photos, and was a member of “It’s My Life [for girls]”, which says it’s “For all teenage and pre-teen girls!”, but had many of the same adult predators I had seen on other CP networks, including this guy:

He really seems to like the GL sites (Girl Lover).

This site was much like the third site I found yesterday, and was shut down within minutes of being reported to Ning and NCMEC.

It seems that Ning has also gone through Dagmar’s friends, as well as the friends of the pre-teen she had recently “friended”, and cleaned up all the photos. Though I’m not sure if Ning or Dagmar removed Dagmar’s photo… I’m glad I had it from her PACA profile before I banned her so that people could see that it was her.

I was going to post it in the Campaign Ning group, but decided that I’d like it to be seen by everyone, whether they’re a member of that group or not. I will be linking it from there, but won’t duplicate the information.

This discussion was particularly difficult for me to post, mainly because I had to go back and revisit all the information I had typed up to report those sites in the first place. But if anyone has any comments or questions, please feel free to post them or email me directly.

Blessings,

~ DodiaFae

[Note from the author: This piece was originally posted to the PACA network that was set up on the Ning.com platform. The “Campaign Ning” group mentioned in the piece was in reference to a campaign set up to help clean up the Ning networks and prevent it’s use by predators and those trading in child abuse images.]